Foul Weather Holds off- Gives Volunteers a Morning for Training.

 On Friday, Volunteer Coordinator Bryan Oliver challenged the weather guessers, and gambled on Mother Nature to give the schooner a break for Saturday morning, and sent out the call for Volunteers. Sure enough, overcast  but dry skies and calm seas and  breezes greeted the 10 volunteers who answered the call to muster with Chief Mate Charlie on deck for some serious docking and undocking training. Deckhand Apprentices Deshaun Holmes and Jonathan Bautista, volunteers Danny Johnson, David Brennan, Calvin Milan, John Whitsitt, Philippe Agafonovas, and Frank Thigpen, gathered around Bryan who started with the objectives of the morning.  Charlie next explained their sequence and  how they all tied together in an actual scenario.  This crew would likely be welcoming guests aboard for a harbor sail, and would be expected to perform it all as professionals:

As a coordinated team they would actually down rig the gangway, cast off four dock lines, retrieve and stow the small boat, then as the schooner approached the dock(simulated), reverse the procedure, by launching the small boat,  set up dock lines, heave the messenger lines and send dock lines over, secure all and rig up the gangway.  Whew! Of course, with the engines not yet functioning, the only action not performed was actually motoring off the dock, but otherwise..

Each of those tasks required it's own sets of skills, surrounded by learning the different commands, the nomenclature of every line, fitting, and deck , safe line handling,, two different knots, and communicating among each other, everything founded on the imperatives of safety for oneself and each other. 

"Learning by doing" was the method, so Charlie and Bryan invested just enough time in telling and instruction,, a bit more in demonstrating, followed by a whole lot of doing,, at first, slowly, step-by-step as volunteers started absorbing the multiple roles they needed to perform in each of the tasks.   Tasks were often repeated with Charlie ensuring that volunteers rotated thru different roles, sometimes stopping action to emphasize a specific safety issue, or just a "best way to do it" .  Somewhere midmorning, Hunter disappeared ashore to forage for provisions at Harris Teeter.   

Jonathan Bautista, Charlie Porzelt
 and David Brennon lay out on
the head rig to rig the jib halyard.

By mid-day, with Dock lines finally in place, heaving lines gasket-coiled, and gangway properly set,  the skies couldn't hold it any longer, and a steady drizzle started up.  While a few volunteers disembarked, the majority laid below into the salon where Hunter had set out a hot lunch.  By clean-up the drizzle had surged to a steady downpour, so thoughts of following up with some afternoon projects were wisely set aside to next time.